Movie review | I'm So Excited: Sex romp less than arousing

Friday

Aug 2, 2013 at 12:01 AMAug 2, 2013 at 10:55 AM

I'm So Excited, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar's strange and confounding new sex farce, resembles a recruitment video for the Mile High Club produced by the team behind Airplane! - but without the jokes. Despite its plentiful and playful sexuality, this dose of Spanish fly is anything but exciting.

I'm So Excited, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar's strange and confounding new sex farce, resembles a recruitment video for the Mile High Club produced by the team behind Airplane! - but without the jokes.

Despite its plentiful and playful sexuality, this dose of Spanish fly is anything but exciting.

Set mostly in the first-class section of an airliner en route from Spain to Mexico, the film consists of an alternating series of random conversations and random sexual couplings among a rogue's gallery of would-be colorful characters. Unfortunately, none of them is the least bit interesting.

Almodovar's failure to arouse even perfunctory engagement with the story is almost incomprehensible, considering that - on paper at least - the film seems wild.

Let's start with the married, bisexual airplane captain, Alex (Antonio de la Torre). He and his boyfriend, head steward Joserra (Javier Camara), are having sex in the restroom when Joserra isn't tossing back shots of tequila or leading the two other gay flight attendants in a dance number. A Spanish slur for homosexual gets tossed around in the unfunny script by Almodovar, who is gay.

Meanwhile, who's flying the plane? The co-pilot, Benito (Hugo Silva). Although he claims to be straight, Benito also gets serviced by one of the stewards (Raul Arevalo) but not before loosening up his inhibitions with a few drinks.

With all the boozing going on, it's a good thing the plane doesn't develop mechanical trouble. Oh, wait, it does.

Don't worry. No one seems to care very much, least of all Almodovar, whose limp direction invests the proceedings with all the urgency of a Cleveland layover. With a running time of 95 minutes but the feeling that it is twice as long, I'm So Excited is no disaster film - at least not in the traditional sense.

Considering all the sex that takes place, I'm So Excited is also a very talky film.

Unfortunately, as a viewer, it feels as if you are trapped by the stranger in the aisle seat next to you who won't shut up about his boring job while you're trying to take a nap.

The most charitable interpretation of I'm So Excited is that it's meant as an expansive celebration of human sexuality in the face of our own mortality. Instead, the airplane it takes place on resembles a flying sardine can stuffed with cold, dead fish.